Uber Technologies is headed into uncharted territory after getting a record $17 billion pre-money valuation on a new $1.2 billion round of funding.

The San Francisco company led by Travis Kalanick said that the funding was led by Fidelity Investments, Wellington Management, Summit Partners, BlackRock and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Existing investors, including Menlo Ventures and Google Ventures, also participated.

Kalanick may not be done yet, either. He said that he is holding the round open because there could be another $200 million in strategic investments coming.

That would give the company a total post-money valuation (the pre-money valuation plus amount invested) of about $18.4 billion.

But Bloomberg cited unnamed sources who said that competition to join in the Uber round was so heated that some venture and private equity investors bailed out after the valuation topped $10 billion. The company was last valued at about $3.5 billion when it raised money last year.

Venture database research firm CB Insights said that both the valuation and size of Uber's funding set records.

Uber is the latest in a series of late-stage venture-backed companies to get mega-funding from growth and private equity investors rather than go public.

But its valuation is far ahead of any of the others who have yet to go public, including Dropbox and Airbnb, which are valued at around $10 billion.

A record number of $1 billion venture-backed companies, massive funding rounds and an IPO boom through the first quarter of this year have led to debate about whether a new tech bubble has formed. Read my exclusive story about that here.

Uber facilitates rides with its mobile app in 128 cities in 37 countries around the world. But it has faced costly financial and regulatory battles in many of thiose locations.

The company has 900 direct employees but claims it creates 20,000 jobs per month through the drivers who connect with riders.

Click here to read the blog Travis Kalanick posted about Uber's new funding.